Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1118959
M8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 19 MAY 2019 MOTORING WHEN it comes to luxury sports cars, Porsche is widely regarded as one of the most established names in the busi- ness and continues to be a fixture at the highest profile races around the world. Automobile enthusiasts can now own a valuable piece of the company's history, as a 1939 sports car believed to be "the very first Porsche" will soon go up for auction for an expected $20 million. The car, which auction house RM Sotheby's claimed was "the most significant surviv- ing piece of Porsche engineer- ing and design history", was designed by founder Profes- sor Ferdinand Porsche on the brink of World War II. The model is called the 1939 Por- sche Type 64 #3 and was ac- tually commissioned by Volk- swagen in preparation for a 1,500-kilometre Berlin-Rome race initially set to take place in September 1939. The Type 64 features a light- weight aluminium body and actually drew on technology later used to create WWII air- crafts to make the chassis and riveted alloy body. It was built with an air-cooled flat-four engine tuned to 32 bhp and the same drivetrain and sus- pension as the Type 1 Volk- swagen. Marque specialist Andy Prill said, "I've seen countless special Porsches in my career, but noth- ing like this...This is the most historically significant of all Por- sche cars and it is simply incred- ible to find the very first Porsche in this original condition." While Volkswagen initial- ly asked for three models of Type 64 shortly after the first was completed, World War II broke out and the project was forgotten. The German government took ownership of the first Type 64, which was later crashed by the managing di- rector of Volkswagen. Por- sche's son, Ferry, decided that he would continue to create two more versions: the Type 64 #2 and Type 64 #3, which was restored from the broken skeleton of #1. The Type 64 #2 was sadly de- stroyed in the war, but Type 64 #3 survived. It held a soft spot in both Ferry and his father Ferdinand's hearts as it be- came a family car, which they both frequently used. After they registered their company 'Porsche' in Austria in 1946, Porsche's iconic logo was ap- plied by Ferry himself. RM Sotheby's car specialist Marcus Gorig said, "Without the Type 64, there would be no Porsche 356, no 550, no 911. This is Porsche's origin story, the car that birthed the com- pany's legend." From there, it later debuted alongside Porsche's Type 356 roadster and was purchased by racer Otto Mathe, who would go on to become the first pro- fessional to do so in a Porsche vehicle. After Mathe's death, it passed onto Porsche historian Dr Thomas Gruber and is now set to be auctioned off this August for an estimated $20 million. First Porsche ever built set to go on auction for an estimated $20 million The classic vehicle predates World War II and was the personal family car of founders Ferdinand and Ferry Porsche